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US vows more high-level engagement with Pacific islands
Campbell said the United States needed more diplomatic facilities across the region, and more contact with Pacific island countries that at times "receive lesser attention."
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US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell speaks at a press conference at the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur on December 13, 2012. (Agence France Presse/Saeed Khan)
W
hite House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Thursday he expects more high-level US officials to visit Pacific island countries as Washington steps up its engagement to counter China in the strategically important region.
Campbell said the United States needed more diplomatic facilities across the region, and more contact with Pacific island countries that at times "receive lesser attention."
"You will see more cabinet-level, more senior officials, going to the Pacific ... recognizing that nothing replaces, really, diplomatic boots on the ground," he told Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The Biden administration has vowed to commit more resources to the Indo-Pacific as China seeks to boost economic, military and police links with Pacific island nations hungry for foreign investment.
Beijing's growing influence was highlighted by its security pact with the Solomon Islands this year, a move that fanned concerns in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
"Sovereignty is central in terms of how we see the Pacific overall. Any initiative that compromises or calls into question that sovereignty, I think we would have concerns with," Campbell said, without referring to China.
Washington has said it will expedite the opening of an embassy in the Solomon Islands, announced earlier this year when Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Fiji, the first trip there by America's top diplomat in four decades.
